Camping Stove Survival Test | Cold Weather Breakdown
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Weight. Fuel use. Volume. Ease of Use. Durability. There are a lot of things we consider which stove to use; this isn’t an exhaustive list. This gets even more complicated when we go into higher altitude or alpine environments.
Yes, we are concerned with carry weight. The less we have to haul up a mountain, the better. Yes, we are worried about fuel use, because that also impacts weight. Of course, canister stoves are a unique case as other fuel types allow better customization of the fuel amounts we bring. But with canisters, we are bringing the same weight in fuel if we use half of that fuel per boil or only a couple grams. So, it really starts to matter if we are going to be out multiple days. With a less efficient stove, if we have to bring an entire other canister of fuel in order to be out - say - four days, then we really are carrying more weight compared to a more efficient stove that will get us through the entire four day trip.
And speaking of carrying, volume matters, too. If we have to get this setup (stove, pot, fuel, etc.) all in our pack, having it take up less space means we can bring a smaller and lighter pack or can fit more of the gear we want in that pack.
Does the stove light easily? Does it leak cold fuel when we screw the fuel into the stove? Can we simmer if we want to? Does it regulate pressure to improve cold-weather performance? Features matter to, tailored to our use case.
Can we beat the stove up a bit? Can it bang around on rocks as we climb through a rock chimney? Can it take being dropped by accident? And so on.
So, when I do these tests, I’m not calling out one stove as “better” than the others. If I’m only considering a few variables (in the case of this video, weight and fuel use). You might need to prioritize one of these other performance characteristics (or another one I haven’t listed). Further, even if you do care about weight and fuel use, if you are only going out for a day, weight might make all the difference as you can get by with just one canister, so there is no second canister needed that would offset the light weight of a less efficient stove. But if we are out for a long time, long enough to need a second canister, then there is almost no (reasonable) weight advantage a stove can have over another stove, that will make up for the 13 ounces (about 370 grams).
Okay, but I’ve added in the concept of a hanging kit, in this video. Why a hanging kit? Well, in a soon-to-follow video, I’ll be talking about how to cook inside a vestibule or cook tent safely, but it basically comes down to this: we might want to hang a stove under cover of some shelter in order to be able to make water out of snow and hydrate food during a storm, if we are on some ridge/perch where there is no safe ground to cook outside, or if we simply need to warm the environment the stove is in so that we coax better performance out of our stove. These are all very common needs in an alpine environment.
Well, some stoves, and particularly integrated stoves (stoves where the pot and the stove “mate” together) come with minimalist hanging kits. Those hanging kits can be minimalist because the integrated nature of the stove and pot already transfer heat from the stove to the pot efficiently AND - and probably more importantly - keep the flame contained so that it is less likely to damage other gear or tent walls or clothes or whatever. So, if we don’t have an integrated stove and pot, rather we have a stove with an open flame, we need to make a more robust hanging kit in order to add in that safety element (along with efficiency gains).
So, this test was about comparing low weight stoves against heavier, integrated stoves, but in an alpine environment with the demands placed that often require a hanging kit. So, take a look at what I found.
Here are the stoves and the hanging kits (or components I used to make hanging kits, as with the Toaks pots), shown in this video: